


Folklore

by withered



Series: Who's been lovin' you good? [63]
Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Extremis Tony Stark, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Scars, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:47:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25590100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withered/pseuds/withered
Summary: It's the stuff of fairytale romanticism turned reality; soulmates sharing skin is an oversimplification of what happens between people to whom the universe claims were made for one another, but it isn't entirely wrong. What appears on one's skin, will appear on the other's. At least in terms of scars and bruises.Tony pities whoever shares his skin.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark
Series: Who's been lovin' you good? [63]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/918138
Comments: 102
Kudos: 1359
Collections: Let the slash begin!, Marvel





	Folklore

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theneontrees7](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theneontrees7/gifts).



It's the stuff of fairytale romanticism turned reality; soulmates sharing skin is an oversimplification of what happens between people to whom the universe claims were made for one another, but it isn't entirely wrong. What appears on one's skin, will appear on the other's. At least in terms of scars and bruises 

Tony pities whoever shares his skin.

Though he suspects sometimes that his soulmate is a ghost, as far as the echos of their lives have etched themselves on Tony, appearing in ink stains -- purple, blue, black -- there one minute, gone the next. He vividly recalls, as a child, making a nanny faint when his face became the canvas for a blue colored boot print, but by the time she'd woken, the mark was gone. Come the end of the day, so was she.

This was a recurring situation. While it drove his various nannies to hysterics when they'd been around to witness it, Tony had simply taken to guessing at the kind of injuries that would result in bruises that appear in the odd shapes they do.

Internal bleeding. Head trauma. Major impact to the chest. Cracked ribs. Dislocated knee. Broken clavicle. Again. And again. And again. 

Are they still alive? Do they want to be?

Tony remembers the morning after his parents died, watching a stain slither and spill from his knuckles into his palms. He wondered if his soulmate had gotten into a fight. 

Wondered whether they'd won. 

Or whether they'd left Tony like his parents had.

He tries not to think about it, or them, and is pretty successful in avoiding the sight of his own flesh thanks to his self-imposed creator's schedule and the constant state of inebriation encouraged by Obie. 

After that, Tony had been more concerned about staying alive, and then lamenting the fact that he was. 

It's only after things had settled down post-Afghanistan, dying from any number of things depending on the day, with a gaping hole in his chest, does it occur to Tony that his soulmate must be terrified.

There's no normal explanation for the blue threads the Palladium poisoning has turned some of the veins in his chest, scabbing over black like someone's scorched them into his skin. Just as there's no easy way to explain the scars from the shrapnel or the cavity created by the arc reactor.

At the very least, Tony thinks, he'll definitely know his soulmate when he meets them. There's no hiding the kind of claim Tony's made of their shared skins.

Not that Tony advertises the marks. After Afghanistan, and after Pepper, Tony has zero desire for anyone to see the godforsaken mess he's made of himself: like all his emotional wounds -- the betrayal, the abuse, the heartache, the loss  \-- have escaped the crevices of his soul and leaked onto his skin in permanent ink.

He can't afford the weakness that's been made so blatant by them. He couldn't stand the rejection he knows he'll see when they see him for all that he is.

And then the bunker happens, and that's not a problem anymore.

Because when the universe takes it doesn't just take what's on the surface, it rips out whatever's been latching on and festering beneath it. 

It doesn't surprise Tony. 

The "Civil War" was never just about the Accords; it was just the tip of the proverbial ice berg, and Tony was the Titanic.

The scars of his past are burned out of him with Extremis, but like the icy waters that entomb that dredged husk of a boat in the Atlantic, like the unforgiving winds in that bunker in Siberia, Tony feels the cool touch of them all the same -- in every shudder, in every chill that goes up his spine -- like he's walking over his own grave.

The only scar he keeps is the one he's always had, before the Avengers, before Iron Man, before even the Merchant of Death: It's a monster of a claim spanning the entirety of his back, a scar so large and unwieldy that it appears on his front too, bands of a thick silvery white like the clutch of teeth of some great predator. The mark isn't even his.

Somehow, even with Extremis, his soulmate haunts him still. 

It shouldn't be comforting; not for the horror it suggests in the making of it, but Tony feels less alone in the world for its appearance on his skin. What he can see of his scar from the front is like the mock of an embrace, a protective cloak. It's less like the proof of Tony's failures as his own scars were, and more a silent declaration, a claim only a soulmate has because Tony is as integral to them as their own body. It is a scar they share.

Which is just as well. The random bruises his soulmate once left him don't appear anymore, but Tony doesn't know if that's Extremis' doing or if whoever his soulmate is has simply stopped getting hurt. Or maybe, Tony thinks a little sardonically, maybe they've finally gotten the peace they were hoping for, and their scar on Tony's skin is all that remains of them.

On the whole, Tony hopes they're happy wherever and whoever they are.

Either way, they won't have him to worry about anymore. Besides the scar left by his soulmate, Tony is clean of any new marks, for now and for always.

That doesn't mean he likes it, though.

Tony misses his own scars, all that history engraved on his skin.  He doesn't need them to remember his mistakes, of why he is who he is now. But he feels. Like a liar. His skin is a blank slate where his conscience isn't.

Sometimes he thinks he can fool everyone into thinking he can do what he says, and be who he wishes he was: someone who can get the answers, who can fix things, who can help. Because Extremis has given him a new lease on life with the guarantee of enhanced endurance and healing capabilities in exchange for his sins, and he should be grateful. Instead, he feels like a fraud, and his near-immortality is just another mask to wear that no one will see under. 

And it's. Fine. It is.

Tony is used to it. 

The world will keep turning and there'll be more bad guys to fight and more hell to raise and it's. Fine.

Having another mask forged of iron to hide the fragile, breakable person beneath is how he's survived this long. The last time he'd exposed himself to be less than the mask, the suit of armor, Rogers had gone for the throat. And Tony.

Tony almost let him.

Regardless, he's always been the man with everything and nothing, that doesn't mean anyone else has to know that. 

Being seen for the mosaic of tragedy he is, is not something he can afford. He lives among chaos and destruction, and he can't burn for it again. He won't. But what remains of his humanness is nothing but a yawning chasm of yearning, and his innately fallible desire to be seen for it because Tony can't ever just accept his dues, not without wanting something in return.

What he gets is Barnes, and it's not a bad trade off.

Of all the people in the world who would understand what Tony feels, it's him.

Ever since the Rogues' return, Tony's seen the kind of fragile purgatory Barnes exists in where Rogers alternates how he treats him based on whether Barnes has behaved the way _Bucky_ would have. The checks have to balance out in Rogers' head, and if it doesn't, Barnes is exiled.

Tony thinks Barnes prefers the punishment, but even if Barnes isn't the Bucky Rogers remembers anymore, _he was, once_. And that fact is enough for the Captain to push for more. 

Rogers doesn't always get what he wants though, and that says something about Tony that he revels in it when Barnes' eyes glint a certain way before he's pushing Rogers right back. Sometimes verbally. Sometimes physically.

The result is expected too. 

Super Soldiers aren't good to things that can be broken.

"If you'd ask me a year ago if I'd prefer to patch up the Winter Soldier or Captain America, I'd have told you I'd rather take lying on the bunker floor for another forty-eight hours."

Rogers gets twitchy every time Tony casually brings it up. _Like it hurts him._

Barnes has no such compunctions. "You did need to cool off, doll. Be honest, the cold air was good for you."

"Fucker," Tony accuses with only the slightest hint of fondness. 

It's not Tony's fault. If Barnes was a shittier person, Tony wouldn't have this problem. He's got a weakness for people who can give it as good as they can take it, and Barnes is a feisty son of a bitch now that he isn't running on the fumes of his survival protocols.

"Shuri's gonna kill you, what the hell did you do to this thing?"

Around the apple he's been forlornly eating while Tony works on the arm, Barnes replies, "Magnets. I get 'em from Costco."

"Like hell you fucked up Shuri's tech with fridge magnets," Tony scoffs.

"I may have let Dumbo put 'em on for me."

At that, Tony shoots the bot an unimpressed look which Dum-E responds to by bowing his crane like a chastised puppy and turning away to blend something in apology. 

"You're a bad influence, Wonderland," Tony tuts, "I don't know why I let you in here."

"Same reason for everything: because you let me." The apple crunches in Barnes' mouth, and Tony tries not to go cross eyed with the way he rolls his eyes. "Don't make that face," Barnes says. "It's just you and me here, doll, you can admit it: you like me."

"In comparison to the rest of the merry men, it's not exactly a ringing endorsement," is Tony's dry reply.

The apples crunches again before Barnes flashes him a smirk. "That's still not a no."

Tony scoffs, doesn't deny it anyway, and urges him, "Take your shirt off, I don't know why you let Rogers punch you so high up your chest, but the mooring's definitely gone screwy somewhere."

"You can just say you want to see me naked," Barnes drawls with a wink, like the asshole Tony pretends he isn't secretly friends with. "All you gotta do is ask, sweet thing." He uncoils himself from his casual slump on the bench, lean muscle and predator awareness. He tosses his apple core with an effortless flick of the wrist, the barest flex of a bicep.

"I didn't know I let such a blatant exhibitionist in my home," Tony remarks as Barnes lifts the hem of his dark vest and begins to tug it off, real slow, like he's giving a show, the bastard. Whatever words Tony intends, something appropriately snarky about how Barnes is _such a tease, Jesus Christ, lay off. I'm forty, and a disaster and you know you're my type, you fuck_ dies on his throat because then Barnes is shirtless  and \--

"Oh my god," Tony breaths.

Barnes flinches, shoulders pulling up to his ears in defense which just brings his chest into focus; the outline of the arc reactor and the branches of the Palladian poisoning stretching outwards from the core like the arms of a  sun . 

Tony doesn't ask where Barnes got the scars. He knows because they're his. 

"Turn around."

"What," Barnes deadpans, hackles rising in a low grade growl in his voice. But the flicker in his eyes, the pull of his mouth says something else. It says he's hopeful. And that he's afraid because he's so hopeful.

And Tony's not some genius on the minute expressions that Barnes yields, the emotions he hides beneath them, but. Tony's always been able to understand him, he'd always suspected that he knew what Barnes felt almost as well as Barnes knew what Tony felt. 

Tony never wondered why. He'd just been grateful that Barnes didn't demand some kind of explanation for Tony's myriad of neurosis. He'd been glad someone just. Knew.

"Would you just...please, Barnes?"

And Barnes must. Feel it too. Understand what Tony means, what he wants, _why_. As he's always been able to. Because Barnes turns and.

Tony exhales slowly, fingertips hovering but not touching, though Barnes' breath catches as if he can feel it anyway. 

The pristine skin of Barnes' back is so different to Tony's own which is how Tony begins, " I have a scar that goes from shoulder to shoulder, nape to tail, in tendrils shaped like white flames, unfurling like flowers; a seraph's pinions. It glances over my shoulders and it clutches at my ribs like it's holding me together, and sometimes it is."   


_It holds me when no one else will. When no one else can. When no one else would want to._

Barnes doesn't look like he's breathing anymore, but when Tony's hand reached around Barnes to ghost over his pec from behind, Barnes reaches back for it, weaves his fingers into the gaps of Tony's, and tugs.

His heartbeat thumps against the sole of Tony's palm. Steady, steady. His naked skin is warm against Tony's chest, against the heart of his hand.

Tony's breath flutters.

"The problem is," he continues, quiet against Barnes' shoulder. "It isn't mine." 

Tony moves with Barnes' exhale, his voice like a purr against Tony's lips, "I have a scar that looks like a star made its home in my chest, and despite its size, it was comfortable, it belonged. It took root beneath flesh and bone so it couldn't be taken away because it didn't want anyone else. It wouldn't have anyone else. And I wouldn't let anyone have it, if it were mine. " Then, a long drawn out sigh. "But it's not."

"No," Tony echoes. "Because you had wings."

At that Barnes chuckles, and it sounds choked. "I fell, and when their serum finally worked right, it wiped them away. I thought the scar was gone like the life Hydra took from me." 

Tony's brows furrow. "Then how...how did my scar..."

"You leave an impression," is all Barnes says, and then the realization dawns that the pain must've been so. Distinct. So potent as to defy even the serum's capabilities that Tony almost recoils from the shock of it, but Barnes holds fast.

"I thought Hydra somehow managed to take you away too." Barnes shakes his head.  " I thought you had to be gone anyway, after my chest wouldn't heal. No one could have a scar like this..." His other hand meets Tony's over the shadow of the arc reactor, their embrace made tighter for it. "...and still be..."

"Alive," he ventures, "or here?"  Then, because Tony's never met a moment he couldn't quip at, "Because you don't have the market cornered on being deathless, Wonderland."

At that, Barnes laughs, and even just a hint of his happiness makes Tony smile in turn. "You should probably start calling me by my name."

"Why, because we're soulmates?" Tony asks, and at that Barnes huffs our a breath like he's been punched in the gut. Like he didn't think Tony would ever say it aloud now that he knows who his soulmate is, what he's done, who he's killed.

Barnes squeezes Tony's fingers between his own. "Because you never call me by my name, doll," is his retort, like he ever calls Tony anything besides those ridiculous terms of endearments, the hypocrite.

Tony muffles a noise of derision against his skin anyway, and tells him, "The only way I'm calling you _Bucky_ is if I'm in danger."

Tapping gently at his chest -- where the ghost of Tony's arc reactor had been, where the heart of the Palladium poisoning pumped his veins black -- Barnes tells him, fond and full of reverence, "You are the danger, Tony Stark. No one stands a chance. And I certainly won't let them." Bringing Tony's knuckles up to his lips, the words are  pressed with a solemn vow, "You've got me now."

It hits Tony then how long Barnes must have waited. How Barnes didn't have the phantom wings that Tony had to cling to all this time. Filled with a tender sort of aching, Tony kisses along Barnes' shoulder and says apprehensively, "You waited so long for me."

"My soulmate's a starboy," is Barnes' amused reply. Decisively, "I'd have waited lifetimes. And I have. It was worth it. You were worth the wait."

"You don't know that," Tony argues softly.

Looking over his shoulder to catch Tony's eye, Barnes smirks. "Prove me wrong then, sweet thing."

Tony snorts. "You know I don't like being wrong."

"Oh," Barnes drawls, his smile this side of filthy, "that I'm counting on."

**Author's Note:**

> Circusofwolves slid into my Tumblr inbox with a request for another soulmate AU, and after the lovely mood board they made for [Coping mechanisms](https://everything-withered.tumblr.com/post/624343684712988672/coping-mechanism) how could I resist?
> 
> To clarify: unlike every other soulmate pairs/groups (because we stan polyamorous soulmates in this house), Tony and Bucky have the special situation of only having each other's scars rather than "sharing" them. For anyone who knows Bucky and Tony's history (Bucky's fall and Tony's arc reactor shenanigans), they'd know exactly who the other belongs to. 
> 
> Also, yes, I did listen to Taylor Swift's new album and I've been emotional for days. What about it. (Why folklore and not invisible string, you might ask? Because winteriron's bond is kind of legendary ya'know?)
> 
> Anyway! Congratulations to us all for being almost over the half way point of 2020, may the odds be ever in our favor.
> 
> [As always](https://everything-withered.tumblr.com)


End file.
